A BC couple is wondering why a minor dispute on a plane escalated until police overheard them.
Other passengers on the flight are defending the couple, who are black, accusing the staff of racism.
Jhody Batiste was flying from Toronto to Kelowna on Wednesday when he asked another passenger to switch seats so he could sit next to his partner, Andre Henry.
The passenger agreed, Batiste said, and a flight attendant told him he would have to pay to change seats.
Batiste said others on the plane came to her defense.
“Then she says, ‘It’s not even about changing seats anymore. It is about [your] attitude And then someone in the back said, “No, it’s your staff that’s giving an attitude.” You should talk to your staff,” he said.
Fellow passenger Jennifer Aviss witnessed the incident and said Batiste was simply defending himself as anyone would.
“She wasn’t rude,” Aviss said.
Aviss said she tried to intervene by talking to the flight attendants and then the pilot.
“This was very clearly racial,” he said. “The other person who switched seats with Jhody was a Caucasian male, who was never spoken to. They didn’t say a word to him.”
Batiste said she was told a flight attendant was not comfortable with her on the flight and that authorities would be contacted if they did not get off the plane.
Eventually, the police arrived to escort Batiste and Henry off the flight.
“I felt naked, embarrassed, exposed, embarrassed,” Batiste said. “All kinds of emotions flow.”
He said they had to book new flights, which cost them nearly $2,000.
“It’s just a shame,” Henry said.
Batiste said the hardest part was explaining what happened to her eight-year-old son.
Jhody Batiste said her experience with a Swoop airline led to a difficult conversation with her young son. (CBC)
“He said, ‘Mom, you’re not a bad person,'” she said. “That just tugged at my heart and it was the first time I talked to my son about the color of your skin.”
Peel police confirmed they responded to a disturbance call on a Swoop flight Wednesday afternoon and “escorted the parties off the aircraft without incident.”
In a statement to CBC, Swoop Airlines said it has reached out to the couple.
“The safety of our passengers and crew members is of the utmost importance, and at the time of the incident, the crew made the decision to remove both passengers from the flight,” the statement said.
“Swoop has zero tolerance for racism and discrimination of any kind. We take these matters very seriously and immediately launched an investigation into this file.”
Batiste said the airline apologized and offered to refund them for their Swoop tickets.